Fire Your Boss (5 page)
Authors: Stephen M. Pollan,Mark Levine
Tags: #Psychology, #Self Help, #Business
HOW PROTECTED ARE YOU?
There are a number of different federal, state, and local laws that protect people against discrimination in the workplace. How protected you are depends on a great number of factors, including your age, ethnic background, health, and where you live.
Everyone in the United States is potentially protected by federal legislation. There’s Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibits job bias on the basis of race, color, sex, religion, and national origin. Then there’s the Age Discrimination in Employment Act, which prohibits job bias against individuals forty years of age and over. There’s also the Americans with Disabilities Act, which prohibits job bias against individuals with disabilities who work for employers with fifteen or more employees. Finally, there’s Section 510 of the Employee Retirement Income Security Act, which prohibits discrimination against an individual in connection with his or her entitlement to pension benefits.
You may have additional protection depending on where you live, since states, and some cities, have their own laws offering workplace protection, often expanding the federal protections dramatically. For example, New York State Human Rights Law prohibits job bias on the basis of age (eighteen and over), race, creed, color, national origin, disability, sex, or marital status. New York City law goes on to prohibit discrimination against someone because of his or her own actual or perceived age, creed, color, national origin, disability, sexual orientation, or alienage or citizenship status, as well as the actual or perceived age, creed, color, national origin, disability, sexual orientation, or alienage or citizenship status of someone with whom he or she has a known relationship or association. Contact either your state department of labor or your local state legislator’s office to find out what state or city protections you may have. Of course, remember that the best protection you can have is to assume control of your own work life.
All these noble efforts to redress the imbalance of power in the workplace haven’t really had a major impact. Sure, if you are singled out and terminated because of your race, national origin, age, gender, disability, or sexual orientation, you can successfully win a legal judgment. However, you can be a blind sixty-year-old African American lesbian bookkeeper from France, and if you’re just one of a hundred other people let go because the company decided to outsource all the back-office functions, you don’t have a case. And don’t expect much solidarity either.
The American labor movement’s rise to power was tied to the rise of manufacturing as the driving force in the American economy. As manufacturing has declined, so has the strength of the labor movement. With a few notable exceptions (teachers, professional athletes), the labor movement hasn’t been able to successfully organize information or service-industry workers. No one has been able to convince the twenty - four - year - old single mother working at a day-care center, the thirty-five-year-old college graduate writing code for a software company, and the forty-five-year-old account executive at an advertising agency that they have any common cause with the auto worker, or with each other, for that matter. We’ve become a nation of rugged individualist workers and “intrapreneurs.” That’s been great for corporate productivity and profitability but, as it turns out, not so great for individual security and fulfillment. In this environment the only way for you to take control of your work life and create the job of your dreams is to fire your boss and hire yourself.
I’m not suggesting you walk into your boss’s office tomorrow and announce you’re staging a coup d’état. You might as well announce you’re quitting — and we’ve already seen how ineffective that is. Firing your boss and hiring yourself as manager of your own work life is primarily a mental exercise. Like many of the steps I’ll be outlining in this book, it’s an attitude adjustment, a different way of looking at your work life, which will change the way you think and act in the future.
Outwardly, even though you’ve fired your boss, you will still appear as loyal or subservient as ever. In fact, if you follow the rest of the steps in this book, you’ll seem even more dedicated to your boss than before. On the inside, however, you’ll be the one pulling the strings. You’ll be the one determining your value in the workplace and deciding the kind of benefits you deserve. You’ll be the one selecting the skills you should add to your repertoire. You’ll be the one setting goals and measuring your success. And you’ll be the one deciding when you’re ready to move on to another job or task, because you’ll have a personal work plan.
That may sound very complicated. It’s really not. You need to go through a four-step process of self - examination and exploration. Get out your pad or notebook again. Label one page Job Description, a second Performance Review, a third Alternate Paths, and a fourth Work Plan.
On the top of the first page, write a brief description of your job.
Now, let’s consider what you’ve written. Most people write the equivalent of a want ad. While that’s probably an accurate outline of what you do at work, there’s a problem with viewing the specifics of your current responsibilities as your job description.
When you embrace such a description you’re surrendering control of your own work identity, either to your boss or to the conventions of your profession.
Those who are most traditional probably see themselves first as a company man or woman. They might write, as one of my clients, Jenny Moreno, did when I first began working with her: “I work for Acme Computer as a technical writer preparing software manuals.”
Others who have soured on company identification may define themselves by profession or specialization. They might write, as another client of mine, Paul Derschinsky, did after witnessing some layoffs: “I’m a photographer currently working for the
Gotham Daily Bugle
on the breaking news beat.”
While both descriptions may be factually correct, they’re emblematic of giving up control. By identifying yourself by company allegiance you’re letting the firm define you. By identifying yourself by profession or specialization you’re letting an industry or discipline define you. To take charge of your work life you need to define yourself instead. A self-created job description lets you set the framework for how the work world will perceive you. This will expand the jobs you’re qualified to fill.
Go back to that page on which you wrote your initial job description. To develop your own definition you first need to dig down into the details. What do you do each day, each week, and each month? Don’t reflexively write your answers. Think about the question a minute, and then try to describe your activities in as generalized a way as you can, eliminating jargon and terminology tied to your company, industry, or profession. Focus on the verbs you use in your description, the words that describe activity.
Let’s return to Jenny Moreno. I worked with her on breaking down what it was she actually did, in order to develop her own job description. When a new software application was developed, Jenny was given a large, very technical report created by its designers, which explained what it did, and how it worked. She was also given a sample of the application to explore and test, and a description of the target end user. Jenny first digested the technical report. Second, she studied the sample product itself. Third, she analyzed the needs and wants of the intended end user. Jenny then finished by preparing a manuscript that put the product’s features and capabilities into a form that made it comprehensible and useful to the end user. Jenny and I then worked on getting past the language and terminology of the computer business. After focusing on the verbs she used, we came up with the following job description: “I gather, analyze, and digest complex information and then translate and present it in a form that meets the needs of a particular audience.”
Go through your notes on your activities, removing jargon, and focusing on the verbs. Refine the language as much as possible, the goal being reducing it to a single sentence. Now, rewrite this sentence in ALL CAPITAL LETTERS at the bottom of the page you labeled Job Description.
When you’re not in charge of your work life, all the parameters by which you’re measured and then rewarded, in both the present and the future, are determined by your boss. What are you paid? Your boss decides what the pay range should be for your position, and whether or not you’re worthy of a salary in the upper part of the range. Your boss sets the standards by which you’ll be measured to see whether or not you qualify for an increase. The skills you acquire and hone, the achievements you strive for, and the pace with which you progress are all based on your boss’s decisions.
As long as you work for this person, you’ll need to make sure you take his or her decisions into account. But if that’s all you do, you’ll find it’s hard to move into the job of your dreams. Just as you need to develop your own job description, you need also to conduct your own performance review.
Start by becoming an expert, not just on your company or your industry, but on the job market in general. Using your new, self-created job description, research what other individuals who fit that description earn in salary and benefits. That means expanding your reading of the classified ads, perhaps by checking business journals at your local library, and spending some time searching for salary surveys on the Internet. While you’re at it, contact your college’s career office and see if the counselors there can provide any comparative information. In addition to noting compensation packages, pay attention to the skills that are stressed in these other fields. What achievements seem to be valued? How much and what type of past experience do these other fields require? Take notes on your findings, writing them on the page you’ve labeled Performance Review.
Paul Derschinsky, my news photographer client, went through this exercise recently. Rather than just looking at how much other photographers at his newspaper, or news photographers in general, were paid, Paul started researching the salary and benefit packages of magazine photographers, photography teachers, camera-store managers, corporate photographers, and even photographers who worked for the government. He spent one Saturday in the reference room of a university library near his home, and the next day doing online research at home. Paul discovered that while his salary was about average for a newspaper or magazine photographer with his skills and experience, it was a bit higher than the salary of a product manager for a photo-equipment company, a camera-store manager, or a photography teacher. But corporate and wedding photographers earned more, and seemed to require less experience to move up to more lucrative positions. For obvious reasons, those hiring and assessing corporate and wedding photographers placed more emphasis on portrait and studio work than those employing news photographers. Paul determined that while newspaper photography was perhaps more exciting than corporate and wedding work, it paid less and offered a slower climb up the salary ladder. He also learned that the skills he was developing and refining, his candid photography and expertise in digital-image transfer, weren’t valued highly in corporate or wedding work. In those fields, studio work was more important, and electronic editing was prized. He made notes of his findings.
By developing your own job description and conducting a performance self-evaluation, you’re almost guaranteed to discover that there are alternate courses open to you today and in the future. That’s one of the great side benefits of firing your boss and hiring yourself: suddenly your work horizons are much broader.
Turn back to the page with your new job description. Read it over to yourself and brainstorm about all the fields and occupations that would fit this general description. Don’t worry about being realistic. Give your imagination free rein. Ask your family and friends for their input too. Write down all your ideas on the page you’ve labeled Alternate Paths.
Jenny Moreno, reading over her new job description, realized she wasn’t qualified to be only a technical writer for a computer software company. She could be a speechwriter for a politician, an analyst for the CIA, an author of how-to books, a journalist for a consumer publication, or a report writer for a think tank or foundation.
Similarly, Paul Derschinsky realized he didn’t need to be a news photographer. He could become a corporate photographer, a wedding photographer, or a magazine photographer; or he could teach photography, manage a camera store, or go to work for a company that manufactures photo equipment.
Self-redefinition and self–performance review do more than just expand your short-term job horizons. They free you psychologically and emotionally from the narrow work path you may have been traveling. You’re no longer forced to follow the predetermined pattern created by your boss or your profession. You can now develop your own plan for your work life, which ensures that your future steps help you keep all the alternate courses you’ve uncovered open, rather than close them off.
Odds are you’ve found you need to acquire new skills or pursue different achievements to improve your chances to land other jobs. Give some thought to how you can do that. Just make sure you don’t do anything to risk your standing at your current job. That’s not as tough as it sounds at first. Most often you won’t find outright conflict between your efforts to secure your current job and prepare for your next job. Instead, it’s usually a matter of developing what I’ve always called “bifocal vision”: focusing on your current job and your future job at the same time. If you’re having trouble coming up with ideas, speak with family, friends, mentors, career counselors, even clergy. Anyone with an open mind can be helpful. Write your thoughts and findings down on the page you’ve labeled Work Plan.